New law means bigger Social Security checks for 32,000 Connecticut workers
Teachers, first responders and mail carriers can now collect full Social Security benefits after President Joe Biden signed a new law on Sunday.
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More than 32,000 retired teachers, police officers, firefighters and postal workers in Connecticut are about to see more money. They can now collect full Social Security benefits, thanks to a new law signed on Sunday.
The move could address Connecticut’s chronic teacher shortage, according to the state’s largest education union.
SOCIAL SECURITY FAIRNESS ACT
On Sunday, President Joe Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act. It repeals two federal provisions that penalized teachers and other public employees for earning a pension.
“This is a big deal,” Biden said at a White House signing ceremony. “Americans who have worked hard all their lives to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity.”
The new law rescinds two provisions – the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset – that limit Social Security benefits if recipients get retirement payments from a state or local government retirement program.
Connecticut Education Association President Kate Dias, who was in Washington for the signing, said the old rules cheated teachers and even their families.
“My spouse has paid into Social Security his entire life, since he was probably 15,” she said. “And to have those benefits reduced and eliminated simply because he married a teacher really didn’t seem all that fair.”
NOT JUST TEACHERS
Firefighters, cops and even mail carriers will benefit too. In Connecticut, WEP and GPO penalize 32,476 retirees, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said firefighters across the country are “excited to see the change – we’ve righted a 40-year wrong.” Kelly said the policy was “far more egregious for surviving spouses of firefighters who paid their own quotas into Social Security but were victimized by the government pension system.”
The new law could mean tens of thousands of dollars extra for each public-sector retiree.
Workers impacted by the Windfall Elimination Provision will see their Social Security checks increase an average of $360 per month, while ending the Government Pension Offset would increase monthly benefits by an average of $700, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Workers will also get a lump sum for lost benefits in 2024.
Those amounts will increase over time with Social Security’s regular cost-of-living adjustments.
But the change also comes at a hefty cost to Social Security Trust Funds, which face a looming insolvency crisis. CBO estimates the cost at $196 billion over the next decade.
RECRUITING TEACHERS
Attracting new teachers is already tough, but it’s been especially hard because educators lost out on Social Security benefits.
“Most of us work another career or potentially just work another job on the side, and we pay into Social Security, ” CEA’s Dias said. “Having a reduction in benefits simply means, in some cases, it actually eliminated our Social Security payments. And that really was unjust.”
She thinks the new law makes it easier to recruit people to classroom, especially from other career fields.
“The passage of this bill is also an opportunity for us to have that conversation.” Dias said. “To bring educators or potential educators to the table and say, ‘Listen, penalties off the table. We’d love to have you in the profession.’”
Pay is still a big issue for Connecticut teachers. They want more money, and they’ll be asking for it when state lawmakers head back to Hartford on Wednesday.
